


are we out of the woods yet

by preciouseternity



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-06-10 16:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6964555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciouseternity/pseuds/preciouseternity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke's in desperate need of a new kidney, and Bellamy's intent on giving her one. What are bros for, anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	are we out of the woods yet

**Author's Note:**

> title from out of the woods by taylor swift (obvs)
> 
> huge thanks to Cate, or camerongooodkin on tumblr, for beta'ing this for me!

\- - -

Bellamy, sitting in a surprisingly comfortable chair with his forearm facing upward, a nicely sized needle about to pierce his skin, is one hundred percent certain that this is a totally normal thing that normal friends do. Totally.

He’d be a pretty shitty friend if, upon hearing that Clarke Griffin and her failing kidneys can’t be saved by her only surviving family member, he just sat back and let her be put on the ninety-two-thousand-person long organ donor waiting list. (He’d looked it up: she could end up waiting ten years when she doesn't even have one.) Especially when he already knows that, at the very least, they have the same general blood type.

Which, really isn’t that impressive. A lot of people are type O. Nearly 47 percent of the population, in fact. (Another fact learned on his drunken journey through kidney donation criteria on google.) It’s a little rarer to be O negative, but that’s what he’s here to find out. As well as some other things having to do with antibodies and the sort that this depends on, but again, he’d been drunk when he looked all this up, and can’t be bothered to remember all the semantics. The end result is what matters, anyway.

He already knows he doesn’t have tuberculosis, cancer, HIV, hepatitis, or diabetes (which they’ll test anyway). He doesn’t smoke. He only drinks alcohol occasionally – his recent drunken googling of kidney donation being a rarity. Drinks a shit ton of water. Eats. . .like a pig, but it’s fine. Nothing online said you had to be a vegan or anything. But really, he’s healthy as fuck. There should be no reason, other than the chance his genetics won’t work with hers, why he can’t give his kidney to Clarke.

Except maybe Octavia, who, when she hears about this, might not be so keen on the idea.

It’s not that Octavia doesn’t love Clarke – she’s her best friend, after all. It’s that there is the slight matter of the fact that taking a kidney out is a big fucking deal. And he’s a cop. A cop who runs the risk every day of sustaining a life threatening injury. One of those injuries could, possibly threaten his only remaining kidney if he does this. But it’s unlikely. In his five years on the force, he’s only been shot at once. And it was on accident. By Jasper Jordan, who asked very politely to hold Bellamy’s gun and somehow managed to turn the safety off. (Idiot). Arkadia, Virginia, isn’t exactly South Chicago.

 When they finish collecting the five vials of blood apparently required for this kind of thing, the phlebotomist tells Bellamy that they’ll have his results in a couple days, and to be prepared to come in as soon as possible if he is, indeed, a match. Like, he’d wait even a moment.

\- - - 

Bellamy wasn’t wrong when he thought Octavia would be against this, but he had underestimated to what extent. 

She’s staring at him with her mouth wide open, her hand on her swollen stomach. Lincoln’s arm is casually looped around her shoulders, but Bellamy can tell that he’s ready to hold her back. Octavia has a habit of getting a little intense, and if Lincoln wasn’t holding her back, he’d half expect her to already be in his face, ready to tear him a new one.

“What the hell are you thinking?” Octavia snaps finally after several moments of stunned silence. “I mean, you’ve had some ripe ideas, Bellamy, but I think this takes the cake.”

“I thought you’d be thanking me,” Bellamy throws back. A lie. He’d known she’d react this way. “She’s your best friend.”

Octavia throws a hand up. “You know I have every right to be upset about this. She’s my best friend, but you’re my brother. You’re the only family I have left.” Bellamy sighs and runs a hand over his face. He’s about to reply, when Octavia continues. “What if you get hurt at work? What if you get sick one day? What if you need that kidney?”

It’s nothing Bellamy hasn’t thought himself, but it stings, because it feels like he has to choose between Octavia and Clarke. And that’s fucking impossible.

“I know, O,” he says with exasperation. “But what would you do? If you weren’t pregnant, and there was a chance you were a match?”

The anger in Octavia’s eyes softens a fraction, but it’s replaced with guilt. “I don’t know, Bell. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to make that sacrifice. But if I was, would you let me?”

The answer, in all honesty, is no. He wouldn’t.

But it’s different. Octavia has this whole life in front of her. A promising career. A man who loves her. Children. He, on the other hand, has never had much. And what he’s had, he’s given up for her sake. Which he’d never complain about, or regret. He’d always been happy to do the things he did for her. Not going out on Friday nights in high school. Not dating. Not playing organized sports. Not going to college, and going to the academy instead. All things he’d be willing to sacrifice over again, but it also means that he has a hell of a lot less to lose than her, and if he has to lose it to save Clarke’s life, he’d be more than happy.

“I can’t just let her go on that list, O. Not if I can do something.”

Octavia’s voice breaks, and Bellamy thinks it’s because she knows the only thing that will stop him from doing this is currently going through lab testing. “It’s dangerous.”

“So is everything, O.”

"Not like this, Bellamy!" Octavia separates herself from Lincoln, and runs a hand through her hair. "I love her. You know that I do. But she can make it until she gets an organ from the list. Clarke is a survivor. She's been doing this for a long time. You don't need to save her." 

"What does it make me if I don't, O? If I can do this, and choose not to?" 

"Human," Octavia tells him. "It's okay not to give a life sustaining organ to someone. I guarantee she would never ask that of anyone, so she won't hate you for it, if that's what you're afraid of." 

"I'm not. I want to do this. I need to." 

Octavia squeezes her eyes shut, knowing that she's losing the battle. If she's learned anything in her life it's that her brother is a stubborn, hard-headed ass. And yet, here she is again, learning the lesson for the hundredth time. “I can’t stop you. But, you have to do something for me before you do.”

“Anything,” Bellamy promises.

“Tell her how you feel.”

\- - -

Bellamy can’t say he’s a fan of being called out on his feelings for Clarke, and Octavia is far from the first person to do it.

First there was Raven, who caught on when Bellamy wouldn’t leave the hospital (even at three in the morning, way past the end of visiting hours. He’d become extremely acquainted with the waiting room chairs in the process) the last time Clarke collapsed. That one, he can admit, was pretty obvious. But fuck, he’d been terrified. One moment she’d been standing next to him, and the next she’d been on the ground, her eyes rolled halfway back into her head. 

And then there was Jasper, who’d been convinced that Bellamy was dating Clarke for the first two months he’d known them. Bellamy still isn’t sure where he’d gotten that idea, but he suspected it had come from Miller, who is always getting on Bellamy about Clarke.

So, in conclusion, his friends have no boundaries, and he is in love with Clarke Griffin.

Which, really isn’t an optimal situation. They're best friends. And they've been best friends before even she and O were. Which is kind of a funny situation considering how different his friendship with Clarke is versus Octavia's, but he digresses. And she's been sick for so long, that it's never been an appropriate time to address the spark he feels toward her. And really, she's just all around unattainable. 

Besides, traditionally, he is not the pining type. He not interested in that Edward Sullen bullshit his sister had been into several years back. And yet, here he is, in a constant state of wishing he could kiss Clarke. Wishing he could hold her in a way his status as platonic best friend doesn’t allow.

Yeah, this pining thing isn’t where he thought he’d be at twenty-eight years old.

\- - -

Clarke is flipping through channels when he reaches her room. One hand holds the remote out, her thumb smashing a clearly broken button down as hard as she can, the other has a spoon full of red jello. Her hair a wild mess, fitting nicely with the dark circles beneath her eyes. Even so, she’s beautiful. And she’s even more so, when her eyes catch him and her mouth tilts up at the edges. 

“Can you believe they don’t put batteries in these things?” she asks, putting down her spoon and smashing the remote against her freed palm. “I am beyond tired of _Days of Our Lives_.”

Bellamy smirks and reaches up to turn the set off. “Better?”

Clarke purses her lips indignantly, and he swears it’s one of the cutest things he’s ever seen. “I had it, you know.”

“Sure, you did.”

"Did you sneak me that gelato from down the street?" Clarke asks deviously, eying the paper bag he's carrying. 

He gives her a look, and sets the bag down on the table. "I think Nurse Glinda might not let me visit anymore if she found that in here." He uses his nickname for the blonde nurse who has scolded him on more than one occasion about being in Clarke's room past visiting hours. 

"So, what is it, then?" Clarke asks, playfully dejected. She digs around in the bag to find a fresh cup of sodium-free soup from the local deli she likes. Of course, she'd much prefer a steak and cheese sandwich, but this is all she can have at this point. "Yum," she says with a smirk. 

"Hey," Bellamy protests. "I tried. You can't eat anything." 

"Don't I know it," Clarke sighs. "Thanks, Bell." 

"Anytime."

Clarke scoots over on the bed and motions for him to come sit. He takes the spot she’s made for him. It’s just enough for him to put one leg up, but he has to keep the other foot on the floor to keep his balance. She fits herself against his side, and leans her head onto his shoulder. Looking up at him with the biggest doe eyes he’s ever seen, she says, “Wanna hear a joke?” 

Bellamy snorts. “If it’s the one about the nurse and her catheters, I’m not sure I want to hear it again.”

Clarke hits his shoulder playfully, pulling a bunch of tubing slack. She stares down at it with disdain, and then flicks it back over the edge of the bed impatiently. “I’d do just about anything to never be hooked up like this ever again.” 

Bellamy thinks this might be a good time to tell her that he’d gotten the call this morning confirming that he is, indeed, a match to her, but he decides against it for the time being. Instead, he asks, “What’s the joke?”

“Okay, so brunette girl comes into a blonde girl's hospital room," she begins lightly, pauses, and then continues darkly. "And tells her that a certain freckled cop is planning on giving up his kidney in order to save the blonde's life." 

Bellamy stiffens. “That’s not very funny.”

Clarke sits up, and glares at him. “No, it isn’t,” she agrees with an edge to her voice. "So, tell me it's just a shitty joke."

"It's not." 

Clarke is silent for a moment too long, but when Bellamy opens his mouth to continue, she goes off. “What the fuck are you thinking? I mean, it’s not like you’re giving me a sweater. It’s your kidney. You might need it one day! Or you could get an infection. Or you could be allergic to the anesthesia they give you. Or – “

Bellamy listens to her hundred reasons why he shouldn’t do this, but it only strengthens his resolve. He’s not sure what he’d do if he never heard her overactive mouth again.

“Clarke, it just makes sense. You need a kidney. I have one. We’re a match.” In his mind, not much has ever made more sense to him than this.

Clarke shakes her head vehemently. “No.”

She is so goddamn stubborn; it drives him crazy. “Clarke – “

“I said no,” Clarke snaps, leaning back onto the bed. “End of discussion.”

Bellamy leans up to look at her. She meets his gaze with fierce eyes that are at odds with her tired appearance. Eyes he couldn’t stand to live without. “That’s it? You just want me to watch you die? You think I can do that?”

“It’s not worth the risk, Bellamy.” She looks away from him, and he thinks she sees her lower lip tremble. “I won’t sign the release.” 

“Remind me to thank your mom for your stubborn streak,” Bellamy mutters sarcastically, leaning back again. 

Clarke fixes him with a glower that might have intimidated him if didn’t know her as well as he does. All bark, no bite. That’s Clarke Griffin. “You think I’m just being stubborn?” 

“Yeah, I do,” Bellamy challenges without looking at her. He can feel the heat of her anger beside him.

“I am trying to keep you safe,” Clarke cries out in frustration. The desperation in her voice surprises him, and draws his eyes to her. It’s not an emotion he’s ever heard her direct at him. “That’s all.”

“I’ll be fine, Clarke,” Bellamy tells her, absently wiping a tear from under her eye with the pad of his thumb. The intimate gesture makes him pause, worried for her reaction, but she doesn’t seem to give it a second thought. “I promise.”

"You can't promise something like that." 

"Well, I'm going to anyway." At her silence, he says insistently, "I looked it up. It's not that big a deal. It'll be way worse for you than it will for me." 

"Comforting," Clarke scoffs. 

"I'm just saying, odds are, I'll be fine. And odds are, you won't be if I don't do this." 

Clarke bites her lip, slowly tugging on it for a few silent moments before dropping it back into place. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she whispers finally, and he thinks maybe she’s given in.

“Ditto,” he tells her with a smirk. Before he gets up, he presses a quick kiss to her forehead. “We’ll be okay.”

Bellamy’s about to leave when Clarke’s voice comes. “Bell?”

He turns back, hovering in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He offers her a small smile. “I love you, too,” he says, knowing full well he means it in a way she never will.

\- - -

Two days, and at least four hundred pages of paperwork later, Bellamy is scheduled to be prepped for surgery. 

He stops by Clarke's room first, and finds her in tears.

"Clarke?" 

She looks up suddenly, shocked that he's there. "Bell," she says quickly, wiping her tears away as though he hasn't already seen them. "Shouldn't you be down getting prepped?" 

"I have a half an hour before I have to check in," he tells her, coming forward to perch on the edge of her bed. "What's wrong?" 

Clarke smiles, and it's so fake that it pulls a little bit at Bellamy's heart. "Nothing. I'm fine." 

"Clarke." 

She sighs in defeat. "Octavia was just in here, and we were talking about how neither of us really want you to do this, but it's horrible of us to be secretly glad that you are."

Octavia could have fooled him with that one.

"It's not horrible." 

"It is," Clarke squeaks out before taking a deep breath and composing herself. "It's selfish."

"Stop, Clarke."

She grabs his hand and holds it tightly. "Come out of this alive, or I'll kill you," she says fiercely. He knows it's a joke, but yet again, her intensity takes him off guard.

She leans forward and kisses his cheek, softly, a lingering sensation of her lips against his skin. He feels his eyes flutter shut for just a moment, before he's dragged back to reality by the influx of surgical team members. 

\- - -

Octavia sits in the corner out of the way with her arms crossed. Her eyebrows are drawn, knee bouncing at an obnoxious pace. She has the floor fixed with a glare that could start forest fires.

Bellamy tries to ignore her as the nurses place his IV, take his vitals, clean the skin where the surgeon will make his incision. It’s not a pleasant experience, having all these people around him, sticking him with needles, hooking him up to bags of God knows what. It’s nerve wracking, which is probably why his nurse informs him that she’s giving him a dose of lorazepam. He doesn’t need to have any medical knowledge to know what that is. A sedative. They’d given it to Octavia before she’d gotten her tonsils out way back when she was ten. And it had shut her up almost immediately. He wonders if maybe they could sneak her some now before they leave the room, but no luck.

They tell Octavia that they’ll be taking Bellamy back in a few minutes, but she can stay with him until then. Her glare subsides as she nods appreciatively at the nurse. Then, her eyes fall on Bellamy, and they're a lot softer than they have been lately. Filled with more understanding than he'd expected. Perhaps she'd done some soul-searching in the past few days. 

“It’ll be fine, O.”

Octavia bites at the corner of her mouth, her nerves obviously set on fire. Her hand snakes over the guardrail on the bed, and finds his. “If you don’t make it out of this, I’ll kill you.”

Bellamy offers her a smile, remembering the words Clarke had spoken to him. He still has no idea what he did right in a past life to be lucky enough to have his atoms aligned next to theirs. “Duly noted.”

“Really, Bell.”

“I know, O.”

Octavia nods slowly. “Don’t leave my baby without an uncle,” she tells him, leaning down to kiss his forehead. “I love you, Big Brother.”

“I love you, too, Octavia,” he says fiercely.

Octavia turns to leave, but pauses, and then comes back slowly. “Did you tell her?”

Bellamy tilts his head back against his pillow. “Of course, I told her.”

“No, you didn’t!” she exclaims. “Not like you need to.”

“I’ll tell her after,” Bellamy promises.

“What if there is no after?” Octavia shoots back, placing a hand on her hip.

Bellamy refuses to accept any reality in which that is the case. “There will be.”

\- - -

Clarke looks really peaceful. Even if she’s an hour out of the ICU, and tangled in every colored wire he imagines there is, and still drugged with every sedative known to man. Her blonde hair spills out every which way, reflecting the dim lighting spilling in from the corners of the blinds. Her left hand is closed around her father’s watch, her right barely on the bed with her.

Octavia approaches her first with tears in her eyes. Clarke is barely lucid, but her eyes open as soon as Octavia’s hand touches hers. She mutters something that Bellamy can’t understand, and then smiles and lays her head back down. He can see her drifting already. It reminds him of how he’d been when he first woke up.

It had felt like he was in the middle of the ocean, floating on his back with nothing to worry or care about. His eyes had wanted to stay firmly shut, and even when he’d managed to open them at the sound of Octavia’s voice, his body was still drifting in that ocean. Paralyzed, but not in a way that frightened him.

That had been three days ago. Whereas his recovery was straight forward, hers was a little more complicated. Not only had they had to wait to see if she'd reject, but a complication had arisen and they'd been forced to go back in. After that, things calmed down with her, but those three hours had been some of the scariest of Bellamy's life. The surgeon says she’s not out of the woods, but her odds are improving with every minute.

It's just him and Octavia here, now. Every time his friends come to visit him, they ask if they can come down and see Clarke too, and every time he has to tell them that the hospital won't allow it. Only people on her shortlist are allowed at this juncture. Which, he both understands and hates. She might get overwhelmed with a lot of people, but if they were sent one by one, he's sure she could handle it. But, rules are rules, so he tells them a couple more days. 

So, he watches Octavia interact carefully with her friend. She uses the palm of her hand to smooth Clarke’s hair down, and then comes back to Bellamy’s side.

“She wants to talk to you,” Octavia tells him.

Bellamy nods and rolls his wheelchair forward. God, he hates this thing, but his doctor won’t let him go ten feet without it. And after a lecture from Octavia, he’s decided to trust his doctor.

Clarke’s hand his cool when he takes it in his own, but her fingers flex around his, holding on loosely. Her eyes crack open, and she manages a small smile.

“Alive. . .would have had to kill. . .” she mumbles. “. . .you.”

With his free hand, Bellamy gently strokes his thumb across her cheekbone. “I told you it would be fine.”

“Don’t. . .gloat.”

Bellamy suppresses a smile. “I’m glad you’re okay, too.”

“Hey, Bell?”

“Yeah?”

"Who's gonna. . .save the. . .world?" 

Bellamy's eyebrows scrunch together. "Hm?" 

"You. . . work. . .can't. . ." 

Bellamy smiles. 

"I think Miller and the others can hold down the fort while I'm gone." 

Clarke nods into her pillow, and is quiet for a moment. And then, “. . .tell you. . .something. . .”

“What’s up?”

“I . . . love you.” Her eyes open more as she says it, punctuating her words with the blue of her eyes that is somehow not dulled by the amount of medication she’s on.

“Love you, too,” he says back, squeezing her hand.

She shakes her head limply. “Not like. . . that.” 

Bellamy swallows and tries not to take her words to heart. “You’re high,” he reminds her lightly.

“No...” Clarke groans. “I’m serious.”

“You won’t even remember when you wake up. Just get some rest.”

“I’ll. . .remember,” she says, her voice drifting. “. . .matching. . .scars. . .”

Bellamy swallows, and kisses her hand softly. He’s not sure about her remembering, but she's right. They do have matching scars now.

\- - -

Bellamy doesn’t expect Clarke to remember when she becomes lucid again, but when her eyes meet his through the crowd in her hospital room several days later, he knows.

She remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so this was kind of inspired by a personal experience. I didn't have a transplant or anything, but I was diagnosed with reflux disease in my kidneys when I was six months old. When I was five, I had corrective surgery. It was incredibly invasive, and to this day, fifteen years later, I still have a lovely jagged scar across my lower abdomen area. I was thinking about it, and came up with this little idea.
> 
> Quite a bit of the medical stuff is obviously inaccurate, but done intentionally for dramatic effect.
> 
> But any who, go ahead and leave a comment letting me know what ya thought! :)


End file.
